Tom Wolf vs. Scott Wagner: A guide to the Pa. governor’s race

What you need to know about their positions on abortion, property taxes and other issues

Ed Mahon is a reporter for PA Post.
Previously, he was an investigative and political reporter at the York Daily Record/Sunday News, where his work revealed holes in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting victims of domestic violence.
He grew up in Delaware County, graduated from La Salle University in Philadelphia and has lived in Pennsylvania most of his life.

The Pennsylvania governor’s race pits Gov. Tom Wolf, a wealthy York County Democrat, against Scott Wagner, a wealthy York County Republican.

The candidates

Wolf

Wolf studied at Dartmouth College, served in the Peace Corps, earned a master’s degree from the University of London, and earned a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reid Frazier

Gov. Tom Wolf is seen in this file photo.

Wolf, 69, ran his family’s kitchen cabinet and building products company for years, served as state revenue secretary in Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration, returned to the family business and then was elected governor in 2014.

Wagner

The 63-year-old Republican lives in Spring Garden Township. He has talked about growing up on a York County farm and shoveling horse manure as a kid.

He dropped out of what was then Williamsport Area Community College to pursue different business ventures. He founded a waste collection company in the 1980s, sold it in 1997, and then started a competing waste collection company, Penn Waste, in 2000.

Katie Meyer / WITF

Republican Scott Wagner officially launched his campaign for governor at a Penn Waste facility in January 2017.

He was elected to the state Senate through a write-in campaign in 2014. He won the Republican primary for governor in May 2018 and resigned from the state Senate weeks later.

Other candidates

Paul Glover, a Philadelphia resident who taught urban studies at Temple University, is the Green Party nominee. Ken Krawchuk, a computer programmer and businessman from Montgomery County, is the Libertarian Party nominee.

Styles

Wolf

He has been compared to an Ivy League professor. He’s been called boring and, more kindly, folksy. He still lives in Mount Wolf, instead of in the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg.

Abortion

Wagner

He has described himself as “proudly pro-life.” In the Senate, he voted in favor of legislation to shorten the state’s limit on abortions from 24 weeks to 20 weeks. And he supported a measure that would outlaw an abortion in any case when a fetus’ heartbeat can be felt — which is often possible at about six weeks.

During a July interview with WHYY, Wagner wouldn’t say whether he would sign a bill banning abortion in Pennsylvania if a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

School property taxes

Wagner

In TV ads, Wagner has promised to eliminate school property taxes. In the state Senate, he supported a bill that would pay for that cut by raising the income tax rate from 3.07 percent to 4.95 percent and the state sales tax rate from 6 percent to 7 percent, while also expanding what is covered by the state sales tax.

Wagner’s campaign has said, if elected governor, he would focus on saving money first and that would reduce the amount of tax increase needed to fund school property tax elimination.

Wolf

Wolf has not supported full elimination of school property taxes.

In his first budget address in 2015, he proposed raising the income tax rate from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent and the state sales tax rate from 6 percent to 6.6 percent, while also expanding what is covered by the state sales tax, among other changes. He said the plan would lower school district property taxes by more than 50 percent for the average homeowner. The plan failed, in part, over disputes about how much certain districts would receive and how much of the new revenue would go to things other than property tax elimination.

Personal income and sales tax rates

Wolf

In 2014, Wolf ran for office, saying he wanted the state to switch to a progressive income tax system, one in which higher earners paid a higher rate — although he declined to provide details on the rates he would support. He dropped that plan while in office and instead proposed the property tax reduction plan in his first budget address. That failed in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In 2016, Wolf proposed raising the personal income tax rate from 3.07 percent to 3.4 percent. That also failed.

Wagner made the retirement income comments in January 2016 while fielding a question about why the state can’t take back previously approved government pension benefits. Wagner said that’s unconstitutional. He said he would support allowing the state to declare bankruptcy if it wasn’t unconstitutional.

He added:

“The other problem we have is, and this really, this really angers me to a certain degree. We don’t tax retirement income in the state of Pennsylvania. OK. But you know what really upsets me is the two guys that are getting pensions from Penn State, the one guy $477,000 a year and $455,000 year. Do you think they could afford to pay a 3 percent tax?”

Wagner told the crowd that he and his chief of staff looked into taxing retirement income over $50,000 but can’t do it because it’s unconstitutional. (In Pennsylvania, the state constitution says taxes have to be “uniform, upon the same class of subjects …” — which has stood in the way of a progressive income tax.)

Wagner

Wagner’s campaign has accused Wolf of planning a “drastic school funding change” that would cut money in hundreds of schools so that Philadelphia can have more. The criticism is based on statements Wolf made in June about supporting using a new formula for basic education money.

That kind of distribution would be massive and create winners and losers, WHYY reported, but Wolf offered no hard timeline for when that should happen. And a spokeswoman for Wolf later told WHYY: “Only when there is full, fair and adequate funding would he support putting all money through the formula. There currently is not, and there is no timetable for that to happen.”

Another proposal he supported, to increase gun restrictions in domestic violence and protection-from-abuse cases, recently made progress in the General Assembly. It passed out of the state House in September. The bill is now being considered in the state Senate, which unanimously approved a similar bill in March.

Wagner didn’t come out in support of those measures. He said, as governor, he would want to know whether every background check application for guns is being “scrutinized to the fullest.” He also said “mental health is a huge issue” to address.

But Wagner did support a gun bill in the Senate to increase gun restrictions in domestic violence and protection-from-abuse cases — the same legislation Wolf has supported.

Natural gas extraction

Amy Sisk / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A sign alerts drivers working in natural gas in Washington County to maintain slow speed limits.

Wolf

Pennsylvania has an impact fee with the revenue based on each well drilled by gas companies.

When Wolf ran for governor, he pushed for a severance tax, one that would generate more revenue based on the volume of gas extracted.

Wolf’s efforts to pass such a tax have failed in the Republican-controlled Legislature.